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Town Board rolls out new email policy

The Shelter Island Town Board last Friday unanimously adopted an email policy requiring that all such communications be retained for a minimum of six years and that hard copies of documents relating to deeds and decisions be permanently retained.

The new policy brings the town in line with New York State’s Archives Act regarding preservation of records.

Under the new policy:
• All town-related emails should be conducted using an official’s assigned email, but if an email should emanate from a personnel account, it needs to be forwarded to the official shelterislandtown.us account. • To assure continuity, when an employee leaves town service, his or her email account is to be deleted after emails are forwarded to a newly created account of the person who is subsequently in that job. If there is no successor, the emails are still to be kept for a six-year period.

• The Town Clerk will monitor the email policy to keep records up to date and the computer support vendor will be responsible for maintaining up-to-date antivirus software, firewalls and spam filters to protect the system.

• Users receiving unsolicited spam or email that contains suspect attachments should delete them and report them to the town clerk who will confer with the computer support vendor to assess whether there is any security risk.

Benchmarking energy use

Another unanimously adopted resolution creates a new Chapter Five in the town code to establish energy benchmarking requirements for town buildings. Buildings are typically the highest energy users and the aim is to identify their energy use and promote policies that will reduce costs and pollution and promote public health, safety and welfare.

Records on energy use are to be made public annually by September 1, except for the initial year when records are to be made public by December 31, 2017.

Contracts

Crowley Marine was awarded the project to replace groin number four at Shell Beach with a bid of $25,180.

Costello Marine will replace Congdons Creek Dock with a bid of $60,851.60. Costello wasn’t the lowest bidder, but a committee of Public Works Commissioner Jay Card Jr. and Councilmen Jim Colligan and Paul Shepherd, in consultation with the Waterways Management Advisory Committee, advised the bid be awarded to Costello based on the company’s ability to complete the project in a tight time frame, prior to Memorial Day.

Appointments
Craig Wood was appointed to fill the assessor’s seat left vacant by the resignation of Quinn Karpeh (see story on this site and in Thursday’s print edition of the Reporter).

Mr. Wood’s term will last through the end of the year. If he wishes to continue in that role, he must seek re-election in November.

While Mr. Karpeh was assuming full-time hours at the assessor’s office, now all three assessors — Mr. Wood, BJ Ianfolla and Patricia Castoldi — will serve part-time at a salary of $29,500 each for the remainder of 2017.

Amanda Gutiw, who has been assessment clerk, is moving on to a full-time role as clerk-typist, splitting her hours between the Police and Highway departments.

That job was previously filled by Jennifer Beresky, who is now full-time clerk for the Police Department, since the retirement of Linda Klenawicus.

Other appointments: Kathleen Gooding will continue as a member of the Taylor’s Island Preservation and Management Committee through January 17, 2020; Peter Grand will continue as a member of the Water Advisory Committee through April 2, 2019;; Linda Cass will serve as part-time custodian at the rate of $20 per hour; Annmarie Seddio and Stacey Clark will serve as EMS volunteers; building inspectors Reed Karen and Chris Tehan will serve as wetlands code officers; Peter Miedema will serve as recreation specialist at the rate of $30 per hour; and Ann Dunbar will continue as a member of the West Neck Water District Board of Directors.